


I Did It

by Mikazuki_Nika



Series: Nika's Banana Fish Oneshots [4]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, eiji's last day, everyones really old now, far in the future of canon verse, he did it, it's that unrequited stuff from garden of light, just like ash said, minor mention of akiraxsing from eiji's photobook, minor mention of eve no nemuri, slight sing/eiji if u squint, this is probably gonna hurt you more than it hurt me to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikazuki_Nika/pseuds/Mikazuki_Nika
Summary: Cracked fingers gently sweep over a faded yellow cover - a loving caress. It's an album of all the pictures he's ever taken of Ash. At night, he talks. In the morning, he waits to be taken away. And Sing comes to a bitter realization.Far into the future of post-canon. Minor mentions of Eve no Nemuri and NEW YORK SENSE. Slight Garden of Light vibes with the relationship between Sing and Eiji.





	I Did It

* * *

**Oneshot: I Did It**

* * *

******Normal POV**

Time was a fickle thing.

When Eiji wanted it to pass quickly in all his boyish excitement, it taunted him and slowed to a crawl instead. When he wished for it to stop, to let him live in a certain moment forever, it zipped past him faster than a gangster’s bullet.

All he wanted was for time to pass quickly, so it didn’t.

But it was _because_ he knew Time and its defiant ways that he also knew the value of photography better than anyone else. Photography was humanity’s cheat. A way to “steal” time. A moment could be captured in beautiful, complete memory, forever.

And in his old age, that was important.

Cracked fingers gently sweep over a faded yellow cover - a loving caress.

“Hi, Ash,” he says as he pulls the fabric-covered album open. The teen he had given his life to stares back up at him, frozen. “Today was Aki-chan’s and Sing’s wedding anniversary. Can you believe it?” A deep voice, somehow wet and moist with mucus yet also as thin as a sheet of flimsy paper. His breaths come in wispy, short gasps. “She’s grown into a beautiful woman. A lot of time has passed since they got married. They know each other inside-out now.”

He flips the page. Each picture stares back up at him past the glossy, protective layer of plastic that crinkles noisily when he scratches its edge. It’s a thoughtful movement. Debating. He almost wants to take the pictures out and hold them directly, but he’s worried about fingerprints and smudging and his own heart.

“Their son is a fine young man now too, haha.”

The blond stares back, silent as always, in various positions and angles. He likes the pictures of his sleep-haze best, when it’s too soon in the morning for him to understand that the little box in Eiji’s hands is a camera. He remembers their old apartment - how it was their own little world away from danger until Blanca, how Kong and Alex and Bones liked to keep him company during the day if they weren’t busy, how breakfast was a game of “move-the-plate-before-Ash-sleeps-in-it,” how he would wait up late for Ash to come home or else he couldn’t breathe, how Ash would give him a tiny smile from his own bed when they turned to face each other - and there’s an old, familiar pang in his chest because of it.

His heart, though no longer quite so broken, has never looked the same.

“It was a little harder to breathe this morning.” He lets the pads of his middle and ring fingers glide over plastic. “I wonder if today was the last?” A sudden stop. “I’m tired now, Ash.”

It’s a quiet whisper.

He is not one to complain, but countless nights in the dark like this, with only a single yellow lamp to light the pictures he loved, had taught him that the truth wasn’t so hard to say after all.

“When will you come for me?”

A room without answers. The sound of his wheezing breaths.

“I want to see you again.”

His voice doesn’t crack with emotion anymore. It’s not the first, nor the hundredth, time he’s said this. Now, the words are just an old statement of fact long-proven true. As if stating that the sun will rise again tomorrow, New York will always be a noisy city, there will be traffic at rush-hour. A given.

So the room does not answer, and tears do not well up in his eyes like they used to. Too much time had passed too slowly for that now.

“I lived, just like you said.”

It’s a barely a whisper.

Then, as if pulling himself out of a trance, Eiji shuts the album firmly and puts it away in its usual place in the nightstand. He tucks into bed carefully, wary of his back giving out like it did two weeks ago. Snores sound from the other side of the wall his head is nearest to, and he knows it’s well past bedtime. He wonders fleetingly why he didn’t hear the snoring earlier, but the answer is already there in his mind and he puts the thoughts away, adjusting his pillow.

It’s late, but that doesn’t stop him from staring up at the ceiling, as he’s done every night for god-knows-how-many-years (he’s lying, he knows exactly how many years, months, weeks, days, its been), to give Ash one last thought. One last moment of his time.

And then he’s asleep.

The next morning is hard. Harder than any other morning before it. He is conscious, but his body doesn’t move the way he wants it to. His limbs and back ache terribly, and his mind is slow. Sitting up and swinging his feet over the edge of the bed takes more effort than it should, and he punctuates the thought with a chest-spasming cough.

He has an odd feeling. A sort of… _awareness_ of himself that wasn’t there before.

When his drawn-out coughing brings help, Eiji realizes he won’t be making it out of bed this morning. So he stares at the ceiling and thinks about how different it looks in the white, early morning sunlight compared to the weak, pale moonlight he saw last night. Then his eyes wander slowly through the room. The gleam of the wooden desk. The shimmer in the wispy curtains and their soft waving in the open window.

“Call everyone,” He says seriously.

And before he knows it, all the people he’s ever loved and cared for in his long life, that are still alive, are gathered in his small bedroom. He’s glad the person he loves most isn’t here to see him like this after all. A silver lining in a cloud of darkness.

He cracks a smile at the thought and his family’s concerned faces. “Don’t worry,” he says. It’s encouraging. They know he is ready - has been for a long time.

Sing’s still the little boy he met all those years ago at heart. It’s why Eiji smiles warmly when the elderly man thrusts a hand into the bottom shelf of the nightstand and fumbles with the photo album, pressing it gently into Eiji’s waiting arms with tears in his eyes.

His most prized possession.

“I did it.” He says breathily. “I lived.” He plows past the way his family’s faces all fall at the past tense, and the way Sing’s face hardens but his eyes scream _don’t leave me._ Then, quietly, “Just like you said, Ash.”

He gives them all one last, loving look. Sing’s eyes soothe into a knowing look of acceptance and loneliness, and Eiji knows there is nothing more he can do. He turns his gaze to the ceiling. His mind is far away from him, but he can feel something akin to excitement and peaceful completeness. It feels like a warm hug.

One last, shaky breath.

“I did it.”

And Sing bitterly notes that Eiji dies with a smile on his face too.

**Author's Note:**

> Ha. Haha...ha.


End file.
